


the first to know.

by halowrites



Category: Popslash
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halowrites/pseuds/halowrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for circusgirl's <i>Small Change</i>- a JC challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	the first to know.

****

The picture in the magazine isn’t anything special-- JC’s sitting in the back of a car, smiling at the camera. Sunlight streams though the window, turning loose curls to fiery gold. He wears his hair to his shoulders now, and you wonder what it’d feel like slipping between your fingers.

The article talks a little about who he’s worked with on his soon-to-be-released third album-- producers, a couple of co-writers on some tracks-- and there’s a few lines about where he gets his inspiration from. You skim the page, but it’s nothing more than standard industry promo, neat and tidy sentences and a couple of short, sharp quotes. Nothing personal, no real insight.

You may have been out of the business for a while, but you still have a few contacts, and you make some calls. You get the runaround for a while, which should frustrate you, but it doesn’t. You figure by now, JC should be surrounded by people who he can trust, who can be relied upon not to hand out his phone number or email address without hesitation.

Though, you can’t help but be a little surprised when a frazzled-sounding PA gives you Justin’s cellphone number.

*

You don’t call Justin even if a part of you is tempted. A prank call, maybe. You went to a couple of his shows last time he toured, and the way his eyes had widened in surprise when he saw you made you feel a little defensive.

Which is stupid, you know, because he’s not 14 anymore, and you’ve got nothing to apologise for.

You have JC’s email address and his cellphone number. You see them each morning, pinned to the corkboard above your fridge, right beside the page from the magazine you tore out. He’s still smiling, but now it looks more like he’s mocking you for your seemingly tragic inability to pick up the phone and make a simple call.

"Fuck off," you mutter, pulling on a jacket and slipping some sunglasses on. "It’s not that easy, okay?"

JC just smiles.

*

A long time ago, and sometimes it seems as if you’re remembering someone else. Someone not you, someone not him, two people not holding onto each other because they were too scared to let go.

He told you about what happened to him in LA. You remember a quiet, dark room-- both of you bone-tired, but as soon as he’d started to speak of glitterbright sunbaked avenues stretched thin and brittle, you’d felt every sense in your body snap into place. You’d focused on his voice, because you couldn’t see his face, listened to the rise and fall of his words, felt what he told you slip beneath your skin.

He’d laughed once, when it wasn’t even funny, and you could hear the hysteria waiting just below the surface. You’d reached for him in the half-light and in that long moment when you thought he’d pulled away, something inside you had stuttered and twisted, frozen in time.

"I left that person behind," he’d said, breath hot against your neck, and when you turned your head to find his mouth, you’d tasted salt on his lips.

*

You don’t know if he ever told any of the others. Sometimes you think maybe Joey knew, because you saw the way he looked at JC, the way he slipped himself into place between JC and the rest of the world. You saw the way JC curled into Joey when he was tired, when his defenses were down, when things started to crack and split at the edges.

You saw the same unanswered questions in Joey’s eyes in your own.

In the end, you may not have been the only one JC told, but you know you were the first.

*

It was raining on the day it all fell to pieces and you couldn’t take any more.

"Will you be okay?" JC asked, and he’d looked even more miserable than you felt, so you’d nodded, if only to make him feel better.

"I’ll be fine." You took his hand in yours, and with an unsteady finger, traced across the lines on his palm, up and over the curve of his thumb, careful to look everywhere but at his eyes. "I know this is the right decision."

You knew he didn’t believe you, which was fine, because you didn’t believe yourself, either.

You’d lifted his hand to your mouth and kissed his fingertips, then his mouth, not caring if anyone saw. Hoping, in fact, that someone did.

"Stay in touch, yeah?" he said softly as you started to walk away, and you’d nodded, because, sure. That much at least, you thought you could do.

It was raining on the day you walked away from what could have been the biggest thing in your life, and when you licked your lips, he was all you could taste.

*

You did a little modeling a while back. Cheesy shots mainly, but they weren’t too humiliating in the grand scheme of things. A couple of tv commercials, and a blink-and-you’d-miss-it appearance in a couple of soaps. You have an agent, even though most of the time you’re too embarrassed to tell anyone. You’d fire him, but he’s done nothing wrong, so most of the time you just screen your calls and pretend you’re away a lot.

He doesn’t call much anyway, and you’ve long since figured out your window of opportunity for fame and fortune is well on the way to being closed permanently. It doesn’t bother you as much as you think it probably should-- having something almost in your grasp, only to find it snatched away again.

You think it’s because you know it’d be easier to have never been given it at all.

*

A six-pack of beer and a night when the sky is dull and leaden, and you find yourself dialing the number before you can change your mind again. It doesn’t matter that the piece of paper has fluttered to the ground and away under the kitchen table, because you know it off by heart. Part of you is hoping you’ve got it wrong, and you’ll get a stranger on the end of the line. Another part of you wants this to be over with so you can move on.

A click, and then JC’s voice, barely able to be heard above the roar of blood in your ears. "Leave a message," he says-- you hope-- and so you do, your hands shaking so badly when you’re done that you drop the phone on the tiled floor with a clatter.

*

You’re almost asleep when the phone rings, a shrill sound slicing through the muffled light in the room. It’s 3am, and it can’t be--

"H’lo?" You rub a hand over your face, stifling a yawn.

"Hey, man. It’s late, I know, but. Dude, how many years has it been?"

JC’s voice, and he could be in the room, right there, with you. Maybe it’s just sense memory, but there’s salt on your lips, and your skin is stretched hot and tight. You close your eyes, and can hear his breath soft and steady down the phone line. There’s something else, too-- the murmur of a voice in the background. You can’t make out the words, but the pitch tells you all you need to know-- low and sure, and closer to him than you’ll ever get to be again.

Lance. He took your place back then, too.

You look out the window, because there’s a thousand things you could say, even though none of them will change what’s happened. A thousand things, and you can’t even begin to find the words.

"You there?" JC again, and you have to say something, anything at all. "Jason?"

"Yeah. I’m here."

Outside, you can see it’s starting to rain.

*

so put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips // as the dish outside the window fills with rain - **time,** tom waits


End file.
